Mobile electronic terminals are portable electronic devices for inputting and outputting information, and refer to mobile phones, mobile personal computers, electronic dictionaries, electronic organizers, mobile game devices, etc. Among these, the present invention is suitable for mobile electronic terminals that have a substantially quadrangular tabular overall shape, and have a front face which includes an input unit for inputting by pressing using a finger. Typical mobile electronic terminals are mobile phones called smartphones. Due to the recent popularity of smartphones and the advance toward larger screens, smartphones are changing in form, from small smartphones that can be easily held in a hand, to large-size smartphones. Whereas the conventional screen size of a smartphone is 4 inches or less diagonally, smartphones with a screen size of about 5 inches or more diagonally are recently seeing a significant increase in market share. Naturally, when the size of the screen increases, the overall dimensions also increase. Whereas smartphones with the conventional screen size of about 4 inches had a width of 6 cm or less, current smartphones now have bigger screen sizes, and consequently, smartphones with a width in excess of 6 cm are proliferating.
Inputting on such smartphones is typically done by pressing on a display screen using a finger. More specifically, recent years have seen the wide use of an inputting method which receives input by detecting the electrostatic capacitance of the finger. The pressing on the display face is often performed using a thumb or an index finger. When pressing is performed using a thumb, the thumb of the hand holding the smartphone is used, and, when the pressing is performed using an index finger, the index finger of the hand which is not holding the smartphone is used. In other words, whereas using the index finger requires the smartphone to be handled using both hands, using the thumb allows the smartphone to be used with just one hand, and thus it can be said that, typically, inputting using the thumb is more convenient.
Since the front face of the smartphone is pressed when thumb-inputting on a smartphone, the smartphone naturally needs to be fixed. When the size of the smartphone is small, that is, the width is narrow, the smartphone can be fixed by being sandwiched between the tips of the index finger, ring finger, etc. on one of the left and right lateral faces of the smartphone, and the ball of the thumb or ball of the little finger, etc. of the palm on the other. However, when a large smartphone with a width exceeding 6 cm is gripped in the above manner, the all-important movable region of the thumb decreases, and thus the area that cannot be pressed for inputting is enlarged. In view of this, in order to be able to sufficiently perform inputting using the thumb by changing the manner of holding the smartphone, many people perform inputting using a method in which thumb inputting is performed while the smartphone is placed on the pads of three fingers: the index finger, the middle finger, and the ring finger. However, with this inputting method, the smartphone is merely placed on the fingertips, and thus there is the disadvantage that the smartphone is prone to dropping. Furthermore, when inputting while lying on a sofa or bed, the vertical relationship between the fingers and the smartphone is reversed such that the smartphone will certainly fall off from the hand and inputting is out of the question.
Means for reliably holding and preventing such dropping of a smartphone include a method of fixing the smartphone to an arm stand. Specifically, there is a method of hands-free drop prevention in which the base portion of an arm stand having a long support column is fixed to an edge of the sofa or bed, and the smartphone is attached to the tip of the support column. FIG. 36 is a perspective view of a conventional mobile electronic terminal holder when in use. As seen from FIG. 36, arm stand 51 is fixed by sandwiching sofa edge or bed headboard 56 between clamp 54, and tightening wing screw 55. Smartphone 1 is attached by being clamped using clip 52 at the tip of support column 53. In other words, smartphone 1 is fixed by being pinched by a large clip 52 which is closed by a spring. Since the angle of support column 53 can be changed freely while holding, smartphone 1 can be fixed with the front face facing downward. Then, when the user lies on the bed in such a way that the user's head and hands are positioned below smartphone 1 which is fixed with the front face facing downward, inputting using a fingertip while lying down and looking up at the screen of smartphone 1 can be performed easily.
However, this inputting method has various disadvantages. First, the respective operations of fixing the bed and arm stand together and fixing the smartphone and arm stand together are troublesome. Next, the smartphone can only be used in the area at which it is fixed. Furthermore, the stand itself is heavy and bulky, and thus cannot be freely brought anywhere. In addition, if the support column is soft, the smartphone will shake when pressed with a finger during inputting, which makes inputting difficult.
In view of the above-described points, the present invention provides a mobile electronic terminal holder which prevents the mobile electronic terminal from easily falling off the hand during inputting, allows single-handed inputting even when inputting while lying down, and is easy to carry around.